Drat those evil techies—interfering with the get-a-horse-style forecasts of hardworking Luddites!
While academic librarians focus on the current prices of e-readers, let’s remember that PVI will be churning out 120,000 six-inch displays per month in the second half of ’08, and meanwhile better tech is on the way. We ran a somewhat similar item earlier, but here’s an accidental jog from MobileRead with a link to a few extra details. Remember, displays are the highest-priced part of e-readers. Hello, American Libraries? Are academic librarians—at least those who’ve never even used a Kindle—the ultimate e-book authorities?
Other links of interest:
–“Waterstone’s is believed to have signed a deal to stock Sony’s e-book reader when it is introduced into the UK later this year,” reports the Bookseller. “It is understood that the retailer will be the exclusive vendor of the device in the UK.”
—OCLC introduces high-priced digital archiving service is the headline over Barbara Quint‘s clueful article in Information Today. Maybe those costs are what the academic librarians should be ranting about. Quote from Barbara on annual fees: “Charges for the new service fall into 100-gigabyte chunks with each chunk priced at $750—one hundred and one gigabytes and the price jumps to $1,500.” Too bad that OCLC can’t contract this out privately and use the power of permanent links to help libraries build a true Web of enduring content. That would be better than just letting libraries entrust local content to Amazon or Google without librarians calling the shots. But libraries and coherent information strategies are too often like oil and water. Somehow they don’t always mix. The same—for the most part—with libraries and e-book standards. May that change! Libraries need to tell book-related vendors, “Go ePUB or else…”
–Guess who’s now writing a Publishers Weekly blog that democratically appears in the same location as the others. None other than Sara Nelson, the editor-in-chief. But, Sara, isn’t that risky, even if you’re linked in now to the power people at Reed Business Information? We know how ephemeral blogs can be. Care to restore the Web visibility of E-Book Report—my PW blog that mysteriously disappeared to the dismay of unsuspecting folks who were linking to EBR, in the Web sense? All those tens of thousands of words vanished in a flash, not the best move for PW’s credibility online or off. Reversing PW’s decision would a helpful precedent—and insurance for time when new owners take over PW and perhaps make a few personnel changes. Along with my blog archive, PW zapped those of the former publisher and the woman who hired me. Care to get PW back on the right track on these matters, Sara? Or were your bosses the real ones who ordered the massive link kill? Just who controls PW’s link-preservation policies? Whatever the case, PW, so savvy on many other matters, looked like Idiots Central when it so eagerly murdered the links. No need for a linkocide law, but disappointing just the same. I’m rooting for PW to survive, and I’m afraid, Sara, that Web-hostile linking policies won’t cut it. Smartening up about e-book standards would help, too, just as it would for libraries; does PW really want Amazon and the like to run the book business, Standard Oil fashion?
Isn’t this supposed Waterstones deal the thing that was allegedly planned to materialise at the London Book Fair? Also, wasn’t it the Bookseller site that reported on it previously? Pardon my skepticism but I’d prefer some confirmation from independent sources before I get my hopes up on this one. As for the Kindle, well, I suspect UK mobile carriers are part of the roadblock there – mobile data costs are pretty high in the UK and have only slightly begun to get cheaper with the advent of the iPhone. Maybe once the 3G iPhone comes out we’ll see more of a change and the way will be paved for the Kindle.
Dan, thanks for your helpful perspective—and the thoughts on the UK mobile carriers. Let’s hope the scuttlebutt is right this time. It’s healthy to be reminded that the rumors have been off before. The choice is just to ignore them or at least pass them on with proper attribution. I suspect that most readers prefer the latter. Thanks. David